I once led a Special Interest Group for French-language resources. Now, with so many things so easy to find on the Web, the SIG isn't needed, but here are a few pointers, as seen from my viewpoint in Silicon Valley.
First, l’Alliance Française has a chapter in Santa Clara Valley. Typically, each month there is a fairly formal talk (by a speaker) in Saratoga or San Jose, and a very informal gathering of "Les Dynamiques" on the second Thursday of the month at El Torito on Wolfe Road in Cupertino (click to see photos). Just drop in around 7pm, after verifying that it still exists at the AFSCV web page). There are also many special events such as a recent musicale, pique-niques, and an annual event for the Beaujolais Nouveau. The AFSCV web page is http://afscv.org/
The Ciné-Club of Palo Alto shows French films (videos, actually) at the Cultural Center Auditorium, 1313 Newell Road, Palo Alto (corner of Newell and Embarcadero) The Alliance Française web pages have information on the Ciné-Club of Palo Alto.
If you plan to travel, then the Berlitz combination package of a phrase book and an audio cassette or compact disc is a terrific choice. Practice with the language tape before leaving, and take the phrase book with you. In France, it's particularly important to use the phrases in the phrase book, particularly phrases like bonjour. The Berlitz phrase books are very well organized for use by travelers, and they seem to just keep getting better. Look for them in a book store.
Foreign-language magazines and newspapers are available at many local bookstores. Good bets are:
In San Francisco, European Book Company has a wider selection of foreign-language books and periodicals than you will find anywhere on the Peninsula.
For learning French, as well as for the entertainment value, I recommend , a series of 52 programs realized by Professor Pierre Capretz of Yale University. French in Action is by far the best language-learning material I have encountered. People learn foreign languages faster in a foreign country, where there is no way they will understand everything. French in Action partially reproduces the feelings of confusion that you would feel if you were traveling in France, by hitting you with a lot of French, and it's authentic French, from real French people. Even the actor who plays the American is French. In the San Francisco Bay area, you can tape French in Action from broadcasts by KCSM (channel 60). (You need to tape the programs, for repetition and to be able to back up and re-play something that's bothering you or interesting you. I don't think it's necessary to do the tapes in a particular order (when I first discovered them, I started with lesson 17), but it will be best to start with fairly early tapes. Unless you are a very advanced student, lesson 42, for example, will overwhelm you. Even if you're an advanced student, don't expect to understand all the French.
Champs-Elysées, in Nashville, Tennessee with connections to disc jockeys in Europe, has for many years now been offering subscriptions for audio tapes that arrive periodically throughout the year, along with a nicely printed transcript and a glossary of some of the more obscure passages. These are not instructional tapes, they are authentic French. They also offer German, Spanish, and Italian tapes.
Here are a few more links to help you find your own way.
Classics, with texte intégrale:
Language Instruction:
http://www.lire-francais.com/a_outils.htm
http://eee.uci.edu/96s/24060/fliq.html
http://www.georgetown.edu/spielmann/courses/laphrase.htm
A conjugation/grammar reference dictionary:
http://www.sdv.fr/orthonet/recherche.html